I see the post about two executed supposedly gay South American teens reblogged and passed around without much critical thought except outrage. (Trigger warning, for gruesome imagery, the original post can be viewed here, right now, it has 7600+ notes between “likes” and reblogs).
Two facts to keep in mind here: 1) the source of the post in question is a Tumblr devoted to posting photos of corpses and similar grisly topics (mutilations, gore, etc.). 2) the person who posted the image provided no source to back up his claim. There is no mention, outside of Tumblr of these two men/ teens being either gay, executed or kissing. I searched for the source of this “news”. Moreover, I traced the provenance of the photo to a forum (?) called “Cute Dead Guys” (!!!). The photo seems to be removed from there now.
I read a lot of Latin American press daily. I do not recall seeing any mention of this event. I am not saying it doesn’t exist or didn’t happen (just because I haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it’s not true), but I can also say with a degree of confidence that events like this wouldn’t go unnoticed in certain progressive Latin American news outlets. Contrary to what many would like to believe, Latin America is, in some parts, less homophobic than some European or North American cities/ countries. It is not some lawless, uniform blob of executions and disinformation. So, I wouldn’t reblog that photo uncritically, especially to express the kind of outrage best reserved for tangible, real acts of violence. For all I know, those young men are neither gay, nor are they kissing, as the original post claims. After all, the originator of this post seems to spend an awful lot of time devoted to his morbid fascination with sensationalistic, non backed up claims. Why would it be different this time?
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